The Fog
by Thecricketsarecalling
Summary: A novel form of the 1980 horror film The Fog


This is yet another novel form that I've been working on, this is based on the film The Fog (1980) written by John Carpenter and Debra Hill. I wanted to write this fiction before the remake (gag) comes out, hope you enjoy.

"All that is seen it seemed, but what is a dream within a dream."

Edgar Allan Poe -

Mr. Machen and the boys sat around the campfire they had built a couple of hours ago. The high flames crackled and popped as a strong breeze soared through the velvet night sky.

Once a month Mr. Machen would take some of the local boys out of a fishing or camping trip to pass the dragging time that seemed to have settled over Antonio Bay. He was a kind old man who had lived there his whole life, his two sons were now grown and had familles of their own, his wife was a gentle woman who volunteered at spring craft fairs and the forth of July summer dance.

Both liked to give back to the community and spend their older years helping out.

Tonight Mr. Machen brought six of the boys to the town's park, which sat on the slope near the beach, the first half of the night the boys ran around and played ball, Mr. Machen watching and laughing as he smoked his pipe. When the sun started to settle over the hills and the sky changed from a light orange pink, to a light dark sparking blue, he built the fire and started telling ghost stories.

All of the boys were huddled together with their sleeping bags around them, as Mr. Machen took out his pocket watch and snapped it shut.

"11:55, almost midnight. Enough time for one more story. One more story before 12:00, just to keep us warm. In five minutes, it will be the 21st of April. One hundred years ago on the 21st of April, out in the waters around Spivey Point, a small clipper ship drew toward land. Suddenly, out of the night, the fog rolled in. For a moment, they could see nothing, not a foot in front of them. Then, they saw a light. By God, it was a fire burning on the shore, strong enough to penetrate the swirling mist. They steered a course toward the light. But it was a campfire, like this one. The ship crashed against the rocks, the hull sheared in two, mars snapped like a twig. The wreckage sank, with all the men aboard. At the bottom of the sea, lay the Elizabeth Dane, with her crew, their lungs filled with salt water, their eyes open, staring to the darkness. And above, as suddenly as it come, the fog lifted, receded back across the ocean and never came again. But it is told by the fishermen, and their fathers and grandfathers, that when the fog returns to Antonio Bay, the men at the bottom of the sea, out in the water by Spivey Point will rise up and search for the campfire that led them to their dark, icy death. "

Just then the church bells rang faintly off in the distance.

"12:00, the 21st of April."

At that moment something happened over Antonio Bay, maybe it was the howling wind that came from the dark ocean below, maybe it was the darkness as all of the street lights flicked and then went dead...maybe it was something beyond darkness and Hell itself.

The now lush green oak trees that lined the small streets blew in the wind and their branches scraped against glass windows.

Jimmy Anderson was sweeping up the local super market for overtime, going up and down the ails and listening to his Walkman that hooked to his belt.

Jimmy was a smart boy, a little dull when it came to talking, but he was one of the star baseball players on the high school team, and he was in the process of playing off his new car, which meant overtime.

He was in the middle of sweeping around the display of crackers when something seemed to pass over him, a faint chill that made him stop in his tracks and look over his shoulder.

Most of the time he didn't mind being left alone in the store, in fact he thought it was pretty cool since he could open a bottle of beer and no one would never seem to notice it missing, he messed around a little, but most of the time stuck to his work.

But just at that moment he stopped and looked around at the dark displays and shelves that seemed to now cast ugly shadows.

Someone was there...

He then heard something, at first he thought it was just the vents above him, then it got louder and louder.

He looked over the lit freezers that held juice and glass bottles of soda pop, and saw them starting to shake.

It was like those earthquakes they had further down California, Jimmy himself had never been in one, but years later he would tell the story about how the whole store seemed to shake with him inside it.

All of the bottles rattled together and made clinking noises, a few boxes from the shelves fell and Jimmy stood there frozen in the middle of it.

Then...it stopped.

Jimmy stood there for a minute, clutching his broomstick, and eyeing the dark store around him, then he heard a loud creaking, back and forth, back and forth.

He looked over at the display of junk that the tourist went for whenever it was open season...that would be this June, the beaches would be packed, the stories and motels busy, and Him and his girlfriend, arm and arm in his new cherry red car with the top down.

He looked at glittering bracelets, beach balls, greeting cars, towels, and glass souvenirs...one of which was an old wooden sign that was hanging on by one a tiny string as it rocked back and forth into the glass display, the loud creaking filling the empty store each time it hit the shelf.

The sign said...

"Welcome to Antonio Bay!"

Jimmy bit his lip, and then got another uneasy feeling and ran out of the store, leaving his broom laying on the ground, and everything unlocked...the next day he was fired.

Right around then Father Malone sat in his back office of the church, and was having himself a drink...in fact this would be this fifth drink.

Bennett, his helper who looked after the ground of the church knocked on the door.

"Come in Bennett."

Bennett entered, setting down his radio on the table.

"Father, I'll be going home now...is there anything else you need?

He shook his head, the drinking was all ready starting to get to his head...but then again didn't it always.

He was depressed, and felt as if he was loosing his faith, so he drank his problem's away, sure he knew they talked behind his back, but at this point he didn't care...not tonight at lease.

"Good, can you come in tomorrow at five?"

Bennett got on his coat.

"Father, can I get paid?"

Malone looked at him, his glass half empty.

"Ah ... why don't you come in at six tomorrow instead of five."

Bennett looked at him and sighed.

"All right."

He turned and left.

Malone sat there for a few seconds drinking his wine, when he noticed that Bennett had left his radio.

Malone rolled his eyes and got up from his desk.

"Bennett?"

He called out, but there was no answer.

Just then there was a noise...a cracking of some sort.

Malone stopped dead in his tracks, his glass still in his hand and turned.

He looked at the stone wall, the stain glassed windows, then his desk.

BANG!

A huge rock, the size of a large dog came loose from the stone wall that the church was made out of, and fell right where Malone would have been sitting just seconds ago.

It crashed down, sending pebbles and dust everywhere.

Malone's heart jumped and he dropped his glass as it shattered to the floor.

Just then Bennett's radio came to life, making Malone jump for a second time, and the local radio station KKB, blasted it's famous jazz music.

Malone felt frozen, he then very slowly walked to where the rock had fallen on his desk, knowing that if he hadn't of moved he would have been crushed.

He looked at the huge hole it left in the dark wall and then something caught his eye...a leather bound book.

With shaken hands he reached it and took it down.

He flipped the dusty book in his hands and opened it.

It belonged to his grandfather...

1879...100 years ago.

Across town Nick Castle drove his pickup down Mill's Road, he had just gotten off work and was tried as hell.

Nick was one of the many unmarried middle aged men who worked at the docks and lived by the water.

Nick was forty-five, handsome in an odd way and had light short pepper hair, He didn't mind getting older, he had lived his whole life by the water and planned on dying on it to.

He was listing to the radio as he drove down the dark wooden road, Stevie Wayne, the local DJ who owned that light house on the

Other side of town as talking about the party tomorrow night to celebrate Antonio Bay's 100th birthday.

He really didn't have plans on going, in fact he was thinking about heading out on the boat with some of the other guys and get drunk...much like any other night he didn't have work.

Tonight the guys had asked him to come with, but yet again work held him back and he had to pass.

He wished something exciting would happen to him...just once.

Stevie's smooth voice spoke out of the radio.

"It's 12:13, and I'll stay with you all through the witching hour, so here's some more tunes, so keep me turned on and I'll try and do the same for you."

Nick smiled

"Okay."

Just then his headlights caught something...a girl.

She looked young, maybe twenty, tall and beautiful, she was hitching.

Nick didn't even had time to think, he pulled over on the side of the road and she ran up and opened the door, she had short red hair and a killer face.

She looked cold and out of breath.

"How far you going?"

"Just the other side of town."

"That's far enough."

She then threw her bag in and he helped her in as she shut the door.

"Okay?"

She nodded and he started the truck up again.

"Have a sip?"

He showed her the beer he had been drinking.

She smiled and took it.

"Thanks."

A minute past as they drove on in silence when she eyed him.

"Hey, I've never hitched before...and I wanna be careful, can I ask you something?"

He looked at her.

"Yeah sure."

"Are you weird?"

He smiled and kept driving.

"Yes, I am, yes I am weird."

"Your weird, thank God."

The two of them started to laugh.

"The last guy who picked up me was so normal he wanted to marry me by the time he dropped me off."

He laughed.

"I thought you said you never hitched before?"

She smiled, red showing in her cheeks.

"Not since last week, your my 13th ride."

He smiled

"Great, weird and unlucky."

"We'll see."

He looked at her and she looked at him, they knew what they were thinking.

BANG!

Just then all the windows around them exploded, shards of glass flew in the air and Nick almost lost control of the car, he spun the wheel around and to the side as she screamed.

When the truck stopped, Nick blinked and looked around...the windshield, the windows...everything smashed.

He looked around to see if anything or anyone hit it...but nothing.

He then looked at the girl who was checking her face, still shaken.

"You okay?"

"Yeah...what the hell was that?"

They both looked around and just then the radio came to life again.

Stevie's smooth voice spoke out of the radio yet again.

"It's 12:15, and here's another track of some of my favorites."

The girl looked at Nick and he felt a breeze.

"Come on...let's get out of here."

He started the truck and they drove down the road.

Just as Nick and the girl heard Stevie's voice, Stevie herself was up in her lighthouse, which served as the studio of her radio station she had bought less then four years ago.

Stevie was thirty-eight...but sure didn't look it. She was one of the most beautiful women in town, but then again hardly anyone ever got the chance to see her since she worked every night at the station, 6-1. And slept most of the day...other then that she was taking care of her son Andy.

Stevie had married young to her high school sweetheart Lloyd Wayne, an offbeat handsome man who tried to give Stevie everything she ever wanted.

They moved around for a while until they arrived at Antonio Bay when Stevie was six months pregnant with Andy.

Lloyd would drive down to Paravaile every day to work at the news station, he was one of the tech supervisors, who taught Stevie everything there was to know.

Their life seemed perfect, until Andy was two...Lloyd got cancer and died three months later.

It was sudden and not as drawn out as everyone thought it was, Stevie's mother came down and helped out with Andy, and right after the funnel Stevie knew she couldn't move back to the big city...this was her home and she wanted to raise Andy in it.

She was a good mother and was trying to figure out a way to spend more time with her son whenever she wasn't working.

Most of the time Andy was baby-sat and looked after while she worked.

Every night was the same, she would sit in her lighthouse, report some local news, report the weather from that corn dog Dan, and play her records...always looking out at the dark ocean.

Dan had just finished calling her about the weather, and how there was a fog bank heading due east towards a ship that was ten miles out called the Sea Grass, he once again tried to ask her out on a date and she joked around and hung up.

Once the song finished she spoke into the mike with her smooth 'radio' voice.

She reported yet again about the doings tomorrow night and how everyone was going to be there, and the shout out to the Sea Grass...how there was a fog bank heading there way.

Ten miles out...on the Sea Grass, Al Williams, Dick Baxter, and Tommy Wallace all sat back in the cabin drinking.

They were fishermen, who liked to drink and get away from their wife's.

"Boy would I like to meet her." Al Williams said as he finished his beer, just as Stevie reported the fog bank and played another soft jazz tune.

"I saw her in the supermarket once. "

"Yeah?"

"You WOULD like to meet her. "

"What do you know about her?"

"She owns that radio station up at the lighthouse."

"I know that..."

"My kid bother plays soft ball with her son."

"She's got a kid?"

Dick smiled

"Hey I thought you were happily married."

"Not that happy."

Al grunted as Tommy looked out the cabin window.

"She's crazy, theirs no fog bank out there."

"All right, I'm drunk enough...let's go in." Al said as he tossed his can aside and stood up.

Just then something happened out on the dark ocean and Tommy saw it out the cabin window...a huge fog bank seemed to jump out of nowhere and slowly crawl towards the boat, it wasn't like anything he had seen before, it was huge and covered the ocean like a heavy blanket.

"Hey...theirs a fog bank out there."

But Dick and Al were all ready going up to start to boat.

The fog seemed to blind the men in the darkness, a dripping unclean chill filled the ocean air and a smell of seaweed filled their noses.

Al and Dick looked out and then saw something right beside them...it was huge and covered in the fog bank beside them.

"What is that?"

"Looks like a ship...it's huge."

Al left Dick in the cabin and Tommy walked out on the deck, fog seemed to be everywhere, you couldn't even see your hand in front of your face.

They walked out together and tried to squint there eyes to see whatever the hell that thing was being covered by the fog.

Then there was a heavy thud.

They turned and saw something, the fog got thicker and Al and Tommy just stood there.

It looked as if there were two men.

"Who is that..." Tommy said under his breath...and before he could finnish a huge spear went right through his chest, he didn't even have time to scream.

His body feel forward and onto the deck, Al's eyes became wind and he went to turn, when someone dripping wet came up behind him and stabbed him six times.

Inside the cabin Dick looked out the windshield at the thick fog bank, never before in his life had he ever seen anything like it.

The door opened behind him and he didn't turn.

"Holy shit, Al this is fucking huge...it's big..."

An arm reached out and touched him, it felt as if mold was growing on it, cold and dripping wet.

"You get wet?"

He went to turn when the thing covered his mouth and his eyes widened and it stabbed two hooks right through his eyes.

Across town, as the soft jazz music played, Nick and the girl were both laying in his bed.

After the glass accident he drove over to his house and told her she could stay the night since she wasn't going to get another ride at this hour, she then attacked him...they almost didn't make it through the door. For Nick...that was the best sex of his life.

Now they laid together, snuggled up close...the soft music playing in the background and the waved washed up against the shore which was just yards away from Nick's house, and they looked through the girl's drawings.

They were mostly landscapes of the different places she had been, they had a soft touch to them and she was pretty good.

"I plan on crossing the country, selling these for ten bucks a pop by the time I reach Vancouver ... I'll be rich."

He smiled at her plan and kept flipping through them.

"Can I ask you something?"

"Yeah sure."

"What's your name?"

He kept looking at the drawings.

"Elizabeth."

He smiled

"Nick."

"Hello Nick."

"Vancouver, is that where your from?"

"You said you wanted to ask me something, I always thought something meant one thing?"

Nick smiled and nodded and he flipped through the rest of the drawings. If she wanted this just to be about sex and good-bye that morning he was gonna have to accept it, they were strangers and that was it, but something about her made him smile...he wanted to know more about her.

"Persuade, and a lot of money...never got the chance to do anything I wanted to do."

"Aww."

She smiled.

He then found a drawing he liked.

"I'm gonna have to have this one."

"The drawing is for free."

He faced her and she smiled, then he bent his head and both locked lips, they were just about to get started for round two when there was a knock on the door.

Nick broke away from the kiss.

Who the hell would it be?

The knock came again.

Nick rolled his eyes and slid out of bed and got his pants on, as he walked out of the bedroom and down the hallway, he buckled his belt.

There was someone standing outside his sliding glass doors which faced the beach, he could tell it was a tall man, but it looked as if it was foggy out and he couldn't make out the face.

He then started to unlock the door when there was a loud crack, Elizabeth looked up from bed and Nick stopped dead, he turned and saw his grandfather's clock face had cracked, and stopped right when it turned one.

He then turned back and opened the door...but there was no one.

Just the darkness of the beach and the ocean.

Nick stood there confused as Stevie gave out her last report.

"One o' clock, the witching hour done...tune in tomorrow for my report of the 100th year birthday of Antonio Bay...have a good rest and goodnight."

The radio clicked off.


End file.
